1. Find A Proven Idea And Build Your Article On Top Of It

You’ve probably heard of this tactic already. It’s also known as the Skyscraper Technique, the courtesy of Brian Dean.

Here’s the simple principle behind this strategy: “If it worked for someone else, it should work for me too!”

All you have to do is find a piece of content that performed really well in your niche and build your own piece on top of it.

You can use a handy free tool called Content Explorer to search for contagious articles. Just put your keywords into it, and the tool will give you a list of articles sorted by the amount of shares they’ve got:

Once you’ve found an article that inspires you, the next step would be to write your piece on the same topic. But you have to make it way better than the original.

And unless you are Hemingway, the only way for you to write a better piece is to invest tons of work into it:

Research that topic and go much deeper than the author of the original article;

Give examples that illustrate the points that you’re talking about;

Back up your claims with links to research papers and case studies;

Add a lot of visuals.

There’s nothing easy about it, but once you take that extra step it will inevitably pay off and your readers will share your article like crazy.

2. Create Custom Images For Your Article

If you add a few images to your article, it will increase the likelihood of other bloggers linking to it. That’s what guys from Moz discovered in their recent study:

But we’re not talking about the images that you’ve found in Google. We’re talking about unique visuals that you’ve created yourself.

Pictures

These days everyone has a camera on his phone. So take it out of your pocket and shoot a few pictures that you can use in your article. This is eespecially relevant if you have a travel blog or a food blog. I can’t imagine these kinds of blogs without tons of pictures.

Screenshots

If you don’t know how to make a screenshot, I guess you were living under a rock for the past ten years. Screenshots are super important for “how to” types of articles. That’s because they make it a lot easier for readers to follow you.

Custom Visuals

These bad boys can be pricey, but they help a lot when you’re trying to explain some complicated concept to your audience.

And since we’re talking about contagious articles here, I have a great visual that perfectly illustrates that concept:

Yes, at times you will have to invest a little bit of money into creating custom images for your articles. But later you will find out that other bloggers are using them on their blogs and linking to you as the original source. How cool is that?

3. Fill Your Article With Tweetable Sound Bites

One of the best ways to make your reader tweet your article is by offering them something worthy of a tweet.

Derek Halpern calls it “sound bites” and basically these are short meaningful phrases that entice readers to tweet them.

Try using a “sound bite” somewhere within your article and make sure to put a “tweet” button right next to it. Like this:

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Tim Soulo is a former professional DJ, who quit his career to study Content Marketing and principles of virality on Social Media. Check his blog at BloggerJet.com if you want to get more traffic and sales from your articles.

Hello Tim, Thanks for your good article. Really just amazing and killers points for content marketing . I am newcomer Blogger and that’s why this post is really helpful for me as well for every bloggers. Now-a-days Content marketing is the best one method to do Ranking on Google. I am going to follow your these tips for my own blog to do content marketing. Keep sharing your own experience of Blogging

Wow! Fab tips dude. I am kinda obsessed with #4 lol. As a matter of fact, I just noted in a new eBook – and have done so in my blog a few times – about my experience with a wild man in Nepal. A nut job in Kathmandu bit my arm. He asked for money for a buttered roll. Then, when I gave him no rupees, he sunk his chompers into my guns. It was epic. Crazy. The story has become very popular with my readers because people love a good, vivid, wild story, that you can sink your teeth into and that you can share with a bunch of folks.

I also work crazy on expanding my imagination because doing so helps me churn out these travel stories with ease. I have to be able to see it again, to live in that picture, to tell the story colorfully enough for my readers and eBook customers to feel the story, to enjoy it, and to share it with a bunch of other folks who would vibe with my blog and brand.

I’m also huge on just promoting other folks; give and receive. Give help, get help. That’s the way to go, generating good karma, to boost your traffic flow fast.